The Artist's Guide To Using Reference

Supporting material Making use of reference is something to be celebrated, not embarrassed about, as pro artists tell Tom May.

Twitter can be a great place for artists to interact, but sometimes it can spread some odd ideas. For example, recently the hashtag #ArtistConfessions took off, and one of the most popular confessions artists shared was “using references”.

Which is bizarre, because as British illustrator and caricaturist Neil Davies pointed out, that’s exactly what artists should be doing. “That’s not something that needs to be confessed, we all use reference!” he tweeted. “Look at probably the most famous American illustrator, Norman Rockwell: I have a book just of his reference photos! Or Drew Struzan: he didn’t make up poses, he took photos of himself!”

So where has this idea – that using references is bad – come from? “There’s a kind of purist mindset on certain parts of the internet that says using reference for anything more than studying is disrespectful,” says North Carolina artist Ivy Dolamore. “I think it stems from a frustration with people who trace and recreate what they see without really understanding it. Being a ‘copier’ isn’t flexing your creativity.”

IDENTIFYING A GREY AREA

Using references isn’t the same as simply ‘copying’, of course, but there can sometimes be a grey area between the two. “The biggest problem is when artists adhere too closely to the reference image,” says California-based illustrator Kelley McMorris. “Sometimes a pose or perspective can look natural in a photo, but awkward and stiff in a drawing. It’s important to modify the reference to serve your drawing, not the other way around. Or as my professors sometimes said, ‘Don’t be a slave to your reference!’”